Mobile A Sweet Deal for Axe
Chocoholics Know their Craving can Hit Anytime, anywhere, at home or away. That’s why Axe made sure to launch its choco-themed Dark Temptation body spray deodorant last fall with a large dollop of mobile marketing.
As part of an integrated marketing approach that included TV, movie ads, print and live events, Unilever brand Axe and its agency Castillo/Isaacson collaborated with Ping Mobile on a campaign to drive awareness and trial among mobile users.
The whole short launch campaign ran from late Sept. 2008 through the second week of November. “We only had six weeks to do a full-variant launch, and we wanted to reach as many people as possible and get them engaged quickly,” says Castillo executive Miguel Garcia.
The offer chosen was a text-to-win sweepstakes in which entrants could text a keyword to short code 74642. Ping linked six different keywords, AXE1 through AXE6, with different promotional channels, so the clients could track which ones were performing hardest.
Users who texted in received one entry to the “Sweet Life” sweepstakes, where they could win a trip to Los Angeles or Las Vegas complete with VIP amenities.
Players who agreed to opt in for further SMS contacts were offered 50 more chances to win if they bought Dark Temptation from a retailer.
The mobile campaign was a success, resulting in “thousands” of text sweeps entries and a double opt-in rate of 20%, according to Ping president Shira Simmonds.
The brand concept also carried through a live campaign, since Axe had its “Chocolate Man” walking around Six Flags parks and other locations handing out cards with the text-in options for the sweeps, Simmonds says.
“People were standing in line for 20 minutes to take a picture with this guy,” Garcia adds.
